Vitalik: Ethereum's Core Value is a Global Shared "Bulletin Board," with Smart Contracts and Payments as Ancillary Functions

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform stating that Ethereum's fundamental value is not smart contracts or payment functionality, but rather serving as a publicly writable and readable "bulletin board" that provides data availability support for cryptographic protocols.

He pointed out that many cryptographic protocols—including secure online voting, software version control, certificate revocation, and more—require a public data space. Ethereum's upgraded PeerDAS mechanism can increase data availability by 2.3 times, with potential for further improvements of 10 to 100 times.

Buterin also emphasized that ETH's role in payments, Sybil attack resistance, and smart contract security deposits makes it a core component of a decentralized, private, and secure open-source technology stack.

He believes that Ethereum can be viewed as a "global shared memory," and improvements in low fees and scalability will further promote its application deployment, including DeFi and more potential scenarios.